


Iron Suit

by stitchy



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, M/M, Sewing, Tony is basically Edna Mode, Tony loves Sewing and Steve and its a toss up who comes first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:30:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4778825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/pseuds/stitchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which “SuperTailor” Tony Stark designs everything and makes everyone look cooler and manages to become an Avenger, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iron Suit

**Author's Note:**

> This an AU based on the snippet of info (in Agent Carter) that Mrs. Jarvis worked in a tailor shop, combined with the headcanon of her having been Tony’s nanny some forty years later. No-brainer kind of a headcanon, taken to extreme results!

  
   Tony fit the shoulder of his dress shirt over the corner of the ironing board and gave it a tug before making a pass with the iron. In lengthwise rows he smoothed it, from the side seam to placket, opposite placket to side seam again, the back, the yoke, and the sleeves. It’s a point of pride to iron his own shirt, even though he has plenty of people to do that sort of thing for him. Some of the newer Stark interns might _only_ know how to iron, actually- but this is what Anna taught him. You take what you’ve made, and you make sure you stand by it, every stitch of the way, and then you may wear it proudly.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - -

 

   Mrs.Anna Jarvis had been his nanny, growing up. She was a tiny and precise old lady from Hungary who had made her living at tailoring until her hands were finally too arthritic for the work. She still wore dresses of her own making every day, even as they aged out of fashion. When he was only as tall as her average skirt hem he would tug at the neatly worked edges and plead to sit on her lap and watch the small projects she could still manage. The steady mechanics of hand, needle, thread, and cloth fascinated him. With antsy fingers he did his best to match her stitch like a handwriting, and most days he would beg for some little task to do. Anna would chatter to him about ‘good housekeeping’ while they mended his dungarees, or fixed a name tag into a new sweater.

   “Clip your thread at the end of every seam. Don’t leave it for later. You want to be as complete as possible at every step, just in case,” she reminded him.  
  
   “In case of what?”  
  
   “In case I come look and see all your messy threads.”

   When he was big enough to reach the foot pedal and the table top at the same time, he took to machine sewing immediately. It was the first motor he ever drove, and Tony was in love. He only got his fingers stuck in the rubber belt around the handwheel once, before getting the hang of it. With Anna’s direction he learned to cut and to build, to plan and to improvise.

   “You can always use the smooth bottom of a pot of boiling water if you don’t have an iron. No excuses. Iron before you cut, iron before you sew, iron every seam as you go and your whole garment is the better for it.”  
  
   “Even the curves?” he whined.  
  
   “Especially the curves,” she told him, tapping the tailoring ham meant for such work.

   Tony hunched over the board, and watched the momentary change in color as he pressed steam through his fabric. It was some horrible blue double-knit straight out of 1977, but it was the first project that was all his own. He had decided what he wanted to be for Halloween, and the store bought options weren’t the least bit as authentic as his little seven year old heart demanded. He drew up his own technical sketch and patterns- planned to wear the cowled top over a pair of slacks he already owned- and estimated the yardage on his own. Together he and Anna went to the shop for fabric, and he selected the red, white, and blue that would become _Captain America._

    Not long after that first success he made a robot doll sidekick to stand guard while he scouted, and approximately a million bags to hold the crucial ‘secret supplies’ that always needed escorting. That was a conservative estimate. Seven-to-Ten Year Old Tony sure did love sewing pockets.

   When he was thirteen, Anna was frail and Tony was getting too old for nanny. He made one last thing on her old machine; a thank you. He calculated a series of concentric circles, and made her a quilt. The middle most pieces were an icy white, each ring radiating out in deeper shades to an electric blue. It nearly glowed, even as she faded.

   “Now you’ll have more time to get your academics in shape for-”  
  
   “I already told you, Dad. I’m going to FIT.”  
  
   “Your math is already where it needs to be, but the organic chem-”  
  
   “I’ll still be in New York if you want me to take a more active part at the company.” Tony thought this was a great compromise, considering the legacy abandonment he was accused of daily.  
  
   “I don’t know how you expect to be capable of that.”

   There was no one to talk shop to, after Anna. Howard Stark certainly didn’t approve of such a ‘soft’ interest, no matter how technical it was. His mother was always flattered by any handmade gift he gave her, but never seemed to appreciate the process or have the time to humor him, anyway. He scoured the library for more instruction, and discovered there was another world beyond the flat patterning Anna had taught him- there was draping. It was organic and sculptural, combining an instinctive math with the straightforward formulas he had sewed by up until then. With the help of another book, he transformed a hat rack into a dressform of his own measurements. No one would miss it, and now with his Dummy hanging around his work room he had someone to talk to again.

   “Bend another one of my silk pins and I _will_ donate you to a community theatre,” he threatened.

   In the next few years, Tony made himself suits in outrageous colors, reds and yellows being his favorite, and set himself to building a portfolio. He researched every aspect of textile processes, from crops and synthetic fibres to yarns and extrusions, to the looms and machines and motors that wove them. It wasn’t that the industry and mechanization of his father’s work didn’t appeal to him, Tony just would rather figure out how to invent invisible cloth than nukes- and there was plenty of design and science behind that to keep him busy. He planned his future fashion line from the molecule up. He’d long ago realized he wouldn’t end up in arms manufacture like his father, so the least he could do was make an impeccable sleeve.

   Howard’s sudden interest in one of his paper projects came as a surprise after a lifetime of indifference. As an application to the Van Dyne fashion house, he wrote and designed a proposal on modernizing the classic Captain America suit. At first Tony suspected Howard was feeling nostalgic. After all, he’d been supplying the military long enough to have equipped the real Captain America- but that wasn’t quite it. Tony started at the House of Van Dyne while Howard grilled him on the practicality of new polymers, or the latest metallic thread samples. After weeks of pointed questions his father finally invited him to look in on a project at Stark R&D. Howard and the scientist spouse of Van Dyne herself were struggling to develop an armored suit. It required complete environmental containment, peak maneuverability, and a streamlined oxygen reservoir for some sort of emergency that Tony couldn’t possibly imagine, as it wasn’t a wetsuit or a spacesuit. Whatever it was, he signed his first NDA to work on it.

   “Very impressive. I can see why my wife recommended you.”  
  
   “It’s just theoretical. And it has everything to do with his unique biological specs, so all of that is accounted for to eliminate excess that an unenhanced man would need. That was the main thing I always thought was wrong with the original costume,” Tony explained in a breathless rush, before realizing maybe he was admitting too much. He totally didn’t think about Captain America in and out of uniform non-stop like the hormone-drowned 17-year-old he was. “I saw the files- just the declassified ones. I had a. Thing.”

   While seeking a way to expedite sterilization of the armored suit’s components he invented a sonic agitator that could be commercialized as a laundry and drycleaning alternative. It was waterless and chemical free, environmentally conscious and frankly _a pretty freakin’ cool idea_ , so Tony applied for a patent and the next day he couldn’t key into Stark R&D. He was told matter-of-factly that the non-disclosure agreement precluded any innovations made in relation to the production of the armored suit, voiding his access. He couldn't get Howard to reconsider, and never did find out what the suit was actually for. A few months later his father still wasn’t speaking with him, and Van Dyne disappeared. He couldn’t even get in touch with her husband with whom he’d worked for months. Tony was bewildered, but determined to strike out on his own.

   With the money from the sonic agitator he bought the old Van Dyne facility and recruited several of its former staff. The Stark House designs were a great success, and he thought to himself that he had every chance of becoming a household name in his own right, even if his family didn’t particularly appreciate the “Stark Naked” underwear campaign.

   When his parents died a few years into his roaring success and he was left with a weapons company he had little interest in, he honed in on the most familiar parts of the Stark repertoire. He improved the practicality of body armour, streamlined the requirements of life-support suits for space travel, and borrowed from the technology of the now-discontinued weapons program to integrate features like anti-grav and electro-shielding. While researching fibre optics he wound up getting a doctorate at MIT like Howard had always wanted, too.

   With the arms division of Stark industries closed down the medical division took the foreground of his new brand. He created gloves that stabilized tremors and monitored health conditions. There were exoskeletal suits that augmented deteriorated nervous systems, allowing paraplegics to walk again. Firesuits and even car seats were revolutionized to protect the body with unprecedented success.

   ‘Accountability’ being the watchword at Stark Industries under Tony’s leadership, he personally demonstrated the capabilities of new line up of exo-suits specifically geared for disaster relief. The latest models of what was initially a domestic prosthesis were made with durability in mind and power tested up to ten times that of a human. One suit could make short work of fallen beams, rubble, and de-railed trains while simultaneously benefitting from being a fraction of the weight of a crane that might crush survivors in debris. It was a mechanism that could undo the kind of damage Stark-made weapons had done for decades, and it even had style. What it didn’t have was offensive capabilities.

   “You will hand it over, with or out without bloodstains, Stark!” barked Spymaster, eyes a slice of light through an eerily familiar helmet.  
  
   “Listen pal, you can’t just drop this ball gown off at any ol’ cleaners,” Tony said, head still ringing from the concussive grenade. Any minute now he hoped to see only five fingers when he held his hand in front of his face instead of ten. Or just one mercenary.  
  
   “Off!” Spymaster demanded with a kick to Tony’s gut. He regretted not armoring the body of the suit, when it occurred to him-  
  
   “If you’re gonna kill me anyway you ought to get me to goose up this suit first. Wouldn’t you like some body armor and a cooling system? Maybe get me a few gold bricks to extrude wire with, and I could hook you up with a personal forcefield.”

   Tony got Spymaster to change his plan, and he knew that was all he needed to get the advantage. Any wrench in Spymaster’s strategy was an asset to him- he was a master improviser. He made a list of components to enhance the suit and waited. _What a sucker._

 “Here, you stand guard,” Tony told a tall upright cartridge, hanging his suit jacket on it. He eyed a pile of kevlar bags printed ‘Federal Reserve’. “It’s time to play superhero.”

   There was a integrated repulsor technology he’d been fiddling with for paratroopers- something to share the load with the chute itself, so the profile could be reduced for stealth. It was nearly powerful enough to be capable of flight in its own right. Tony figured that if he swapped his conductive circuit for something with a little more oomph, it would stabilize the piloting. He’d been hesitating to implement it when it could so easily be used as force- but it was just enough force to be a complete surprise to Spymaster when he made his escape.

   “I know, I know. I look like I got dressed in the dark,” he grinned, stalking out of the chamber he’d been captive in. “-but I’m thinking of calling this suit the Tim Gunn.”  
  
   He blasted his way out.

   This of course, got some attention. SHIELD had long been partnered with the senior Stark, but Howard had written off his son’s potential for recruitment after he failed to comply with the NDA nearly twenty years ago. Not that that kept SHIELD from capitalizing on what was apparently a miniaturization support suit with onboard reservoirs of proportionally breathable oxygen molecules. He could kick himself.

   “Is that why all your little minions _and_ Spymaster are running around in knock-off’s of something I designed when I was a teenager? No wonder you want a makeover.”

   Now that he’d tipped his hand with a suit that rivaled superhuman abilities _of course_ SHIELD wanted to dance. It was a little embarrassing to think of them all slogging around in some of his most antiquated tech, too. These were his metaphorical unflattering baby pictures. They could use a re-branding, and that was certainly something he had to offer. He played host in his workshop to a seemingly nameless woman tasked with determining his recruitment and walked her through the tech that was unique to ‘Tim Gunn’s’ make.

   “You can’t call it that,” she said. Tony sighed. She must be a lawyer.

   She leaned in to inspect Dummy, who was nowadays a fully articulated and expandable life model, capable of replicating any body measurement. She ticked boxes on a list, and questioned him on everything from his business practices to his education, connections with military, and physical fitness. She made an indeterminate noise when Tony sheepishly admitted he’d never trained in a martial art, and kept in shape with tennis.

   “I like to think I could do some damage with scissors if it came down to it,” he said.  
  
   “We’d like you to suit our existing assets, Mr. Stark. But SHIELD isn’t interested in bringing you in as an operative. Take a day to get back to us.” She handed him a tablet with an overview of things meant to entice him and departed as curtly as she had arrived.

   He planned on declining the invitation but supposed it wouldn’t hurt to sleep on it. When he had locked up the suit again and said goodnight to Dummy he sat down to take a look at the perks SHIELD was promising. Money; yawn, humanitarian endeavor; already a part of his M.O. but a Pro, research facilities; tempting. But it was hard to separate the institution from his father, if he took that into account; Con. He was still on the fence when a call came on his private line and an old college friend gave him a hot tip.

   “I still can’t believe you’ve been a SHIELD liaison this whole time, Rhodey.”  
  
   “Only the past few years, to be fair. It’s not a bad gig.”  
  
   “And you’re sure about this? I won’t lie, I am _very_ interested if-”  
  
   “Yeah, I know you’re interested. I sat through your thesis on a hypothetical 21st century refit, didn’t I?”

   He managed to wait until 11:13 am to call in and accept the job the next day. Casual.

   Tony was familiar with the adage ‘Never meet your heroes,’ of course. Something, something, illusion shattering and so on. Honestly, he was more concerned that he would be the one who’d come away looking like a tool. _Oh, Captain America, I used to have your lunchbox!_ He tried to remind himself he was actually the expert being consulted in this situation. This was a professional fitting like any other, with a national icon whose influence might be the reason he was here because of a lifelong crush-type fixation. Whatever. He could behave himself.

   “Mr. Stark.”  
  
   “Captain. Thank you for...” Tony dangled, four words in and already tonguetied. Dummy had been set to Captain Rogers’ measurements for weeks- within an hour of the news of his recovery- but he was bigger in real life.  
  
   “I read your file. And it’s Steve,“ he said earnestly.  
  
   “Yes. Tony.” _I’ve read your file too,_ he thought and nodded politely. _I think I’ve read every published word about you ohpleaseshuttup._  
  
   “You made a suit that could fly and fire energy pulses in captivity? I think if I bust a zipper in the field I’d just have to settle for being naked.”  
  
_Oh Lord._  
  
   “Well, hopefully it won’t come to that. Why don’t I show you your suit and if we have time I’ll teach you to sew your own buttons back on.”

   This suit wasn’t really a manifestation of his paper project from years ago. At the time he’d been trying to minimize the overt camp of a star spangled costume. He was probably still hungover from living through the bicentennial. This design benefitted not only from another few decades of technology, but also a certainty of its identity. It was unapologetic when it declared, _I am Captain America._

    "...This piping here in the seam? Trendy, yes, but actually a water filtration conduit. And here's the crash bags I was talking about. They look and function as cargo pockets until you need them for something more...urgent? And they _also_ have two hours lung capacity if you find yourself short on O2."  
  
   "Wow, is this stripe... an anti-grav rod or something?"  
  
   "Nah, that's just to look cool.” He petted the detail with one finger admiringly. Most of the form followed function, but now that he wasn’t building a suit under duress he could afford a sense of style. Besides- “The pinstriping in the flanks and underarms is the anti-grav."  
  
   “What if you want to use your weight to advantage?”  
  
   “It’s only activated in free-fall. It won’t stop you dead, obviously, but with the crash bags it ought to keep even a normal squishy guy like me from shooting his shin bones through his knee caps. What do you weigh, 240?” Tony spaced out his hands to approximate a measurement in midair. “25 inches.... Eh, with a city windspeed you could walk-off up to a 31 story drop without pausing.”  
  
   “That’s brilliant.”  
  
   “That’s nothing. You should see the suit SHIELD _won’t_ let you play with.”

   Tony slid open the visor on the suit’s case. He’d made some modifications- he had an entire upgrade planned, in fact. Since the suits debut he’d cleaned up the fit and swapped in some better electronics, but it was still a brute patchwork of futurism and style. He pointed out the printed ‘Fe’ emblazoned on a pectoral, a remnant of the kevlar bags he’d cannibalized for the shell.

   “I’m calling it the Iron Suit.”  
  
   “So why not put it to use?” asked Steve.  
  
   “Weapons were the family business for a long time. I’m not interested in my legacy being something the government takes into their own hands to do with as they please anymore."  
  
   “Then do it yourself.”  
  
   “Yeah, SHIELD isn’t gonna let that, or me, fly.”  
  
   “Well they’ve given me free reign to assemble my own team. They already promised Stark gear if I wanted. But I want you.”  
   “You...?”  
  
   “Think about it.”  
  
   Thinking about it wasn’t the problem. There was no corner of Tony’s brain that was in disagreement with what a dream come true the offer was.  
   “I don’t have any combat training.”  
  
   Steve shrugged, “You can learn that. You can train with me.”  
  
   “That’s...”  
  
   “Too much pressure?” Steve asked. He looked genuinely apologetic.  
  
   “I was gonna go with lifelong fantasy but I do kinda feel like I can’t breathe.”  
  
   “Like I said, think about it.”

   It was a nice touch on SHIELD’s part to make Tony’s PIN the same as his old Stark R&D keycode. He arrived at headquarters several months after that first fitting with a suit for their most recent recruit. Unstable Molecules? No problem. He outfitted the team with top of the line gear, but just seeing them in action spurred him on to newer and better developments. Years of surviving the fashion industry leant itself to the daily duty of smack talking villains and pulling all nighters.

   “Bird boy, you’ve got some Crayolas at your six.”  
  
   “Which ones?”  
  
   “Macaroni and Magenta”  
  
   “I think he goes by Magneto”  
  
   “I calls it like I sees it.”

   He dove the Iron Suit and offered cover, coming up short in front of them, assessing threat. One had rangeless blades- no problem. The other lifted his arms- and then he was being torn out of the sky and the exo-suit was crumbling around him like tinfoil and peeling away and it was all he could do to wrap his arms around enough of it before it escaped with the crash bags. The metal, _the metal is nothing to this guy_ \- polymer- _a secondary polymer frame as a stopgap_?  He nearly had the answer before he hit the ground and was out cold.

   “This is embarrassing. Can I just quit? Keep the suits. If you see me on the street just pretend you have to tie your shoe or something.”  
  
   “What are you on about, Tony?” Steve asked beside his hospital bed.  
  
   “He shredded my suit. I can make a new one- but now you see how vulnerable I make the team- I’m not as-”  
  
   “Not every bad guy has the skill he did. You’ve done your share of shredding, and I bet you’ve already figured out how you’d beat him next time.”  
  
   “Polymer,” Tony grumbled.  
  
   “Of course. Don’t quit the team. A lost suit isn't worth it.”  
  
   Tony looked at him very seriously. “Take the suit away and what am I?”  
  
   “I want you on the team- even without it. You’re the guy who _could_ make it. You’re resourceful. No offense to Thor, but a lot of the team- when all you have is a hammer, every problem tends to look like a nail. You’ve got needles and scissors and tape measures and who knows what else.”  
  
   “Cap. That’s.. we’re gonna have to check back in at some point when I’m not on painkillers because I can’t believe you just said you’d let some fashionable maniac geek be on your super squad without any superpowers. I’m touched. Honestly.”  
  
   “I better let you rest your non-superpowered carcass then, shouldn’t I?” Steve said, smiling. “And since we’re being honest. I’d be a bit heartbroken if you quit. I like you. I want you.”  
  
   “You said that. On the team, you mean.”  
  
   “Not quite.”  
  
   Tony was too doped up to puzzle that out.

   A few days later when he got back to his workshop, he adjusted an exo-leg to hobble around on until his fracture healed. Tony was just thankful his hands and wrists were spared any damage during his little Magneto Mishap. He had resources to work through an injury, of course, but it was never the same to sew with gloves on. Getting the raw material under his fingers was at least 99% of the fun of his job. The comm buzzed when Steve turned up, as promised. Okay, maybe materials were 88% of the fun. Getting to work with Captain America had be at least 12%, right?

   "I'm being super restful with my injuries I swear, Cap," Tony called when he entered the shop.   
  
   “A likely story," Steve grinned. "I’m glad you’re back in not-fighting form, I could use some new gauntlets.”  
  
   “That’s perfect, Magneto gave me an idea, actually.”  
  
   “Oh?”  
  
   “Nix the straps on the shield. Magnets. We could even make them a funky star shape.”  
  
   “I bow to your expertise,” Steve said with a dipped head.  
  
   “Oh really? So what do I have to do to get you out of those pleat-front grandpa pants and into something without suspender buttons?”  
  
   “Yours don’t have buttons, do they?” Steve’s eyes flicked, looking him up and down. Tony sputtered.  
  
   “They do not.”  
  
   “All right, fancy pants. You can buy me dinner?”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> follow [stitchyarts](http://stitchyarts.tumblr.com/)  
> on tumblr for more Marvel art :D


End file.
